I went museum-hopping today and one of the museums I visited had a garden enclosed within its walls.

The garden sure enough was beautiful: the shrubs were trimmed and prettily arranged, flowers of different sorts that added color were in full bloom and the whole aspect was aesthetically pleasing. It was infact this garden that gave the museum such commendable reputation.

It sickened me. It sickened me so much that I wanted to scream and run away.

I couldn't bear to see such exquisite loveliness trapped. Trapped within walls on all sides. The earth was its only connection to the outside world-to Nature (I wouldn't be suprised if this was even artificial). Even though bright sunlight poured through the glass cover on top of the garden, to me it seemed like an abyss. A dungeon of darkness. It literally scared me. I felt like I was watching a scene of death where something is forcibly made beautiful against its will. Everyone who observed the spectacle couldn't seem to stop praising its beauty. But how many will stop to question how the little red flower feels suffocated in its prison of light and warmth and admiration? Someone (the gardner, the curator, the President) forces the flower to conform to their notion of beauty and it has no choice but to obey. No choice but to submit. No choice to even die if it gets sick of living up to others' expectations. Why is it under so much control? Why did it deserve such a fate?

Perhaps one could argue and say that in this way the little flower is alive. Its beauty is preserved and it lives on as art. However, did it choose to do so? Perhaps its way of living as art would have involved growing wild in the fields. And dying there. Even if meant dying young. Artists have the power to be cruel and relentless. Especially with Nature. They can steal earthly beauty away from something and convert that into what their fancy suits them.

In the end, by doing so, they literally destroy their creation because they strip it of life. That little flower, forced to live, is actually dead. Dead in its loveliness. And those who watch it are deluded into not recognizing Death when it stares at them in their faces. Because of the dictates of society, because of the work of such artists who give into its whims.